Brand New Sidewalk
by caithream
Summary: It's the summer, and the boys get 'real' jobs. Or, what if Sam’s time at Stanford wasn’t his first taste of normality.


Written for the spnsummergen challenge on Livejournal. My prompt was: "It's summer, and the boys get 'real' jobs."

-----

The orange and gold hues of evening shone through the dusty windows of the Impala, like a kaleidoscope in Sam's eyes. His head lolled on the warm leather in the back seat, feeling heavy and muddied, and he felt as if he should have been annoyed with losing his train of thought every five minutes, but he couldn't quite be bothered. Twice he had tried to use the wrist of his left hand to rub his nose, but instead of relieving the itch, the tip of his nose was scraped by the hard plaster of his cast.

He sighed.

Dean turned around slightly in the passenger seat, the waning sun turning his hair golden as he looked at Sam.

"You okay back there, Sammy?"

Sam grunted, rolling his head to look at Dean. "No," he mumbled.

"What are you talking about, you whiner," Dean said, turning back around to fiddle with the radio. "You got the good stuff this time."

"Just jealous," Sam mumbled again, trying to smirk, but Dean ignored him. Their last hunt, one seriously pissed off spirit who had a penchant for staircases and throwing things sent Sam tumbling down a flight of stairs, resulting in an arm broken in two places _and_ a hairline fracture, consequently breaking Dean's record of number of limbs and appendages broken. Dean was torn between being appropriately concerned and sullen.

The rumble of the car around him and the drugs from the hospital still lingering in his body and the assurance of more to come through way of a little white piece of paper tucked into his jeans meant that everything was _smooth_, everything was just fine. Never mind that they were skirting the edges of summer, each day becoming hotter and muggier than the day before. Never mind that casts had a tendency to become unbearable in the heat, itchy with sweat and the longing to cool off encased skin. Sam was beyond caring, for now anyway, and that suited him just fine.

John maneuvered the car into the cracked driveway of the small, ramshackle two bedroom house they had been renting for the past few months. Sam suspected they'd be out of there within the next week or two, seeing as how he had just finished up his sophomore year in the smallest school he'd ever attended. Rutledge, Georgia boasted a population of seven hundred, and while Sam was partial to small towns, attending each class with every single one of his nineteen classmates had lost its appeal after the first week.

A car door slammed. Sam blinked.

"C'mon, kiddo," John said, opening the back door. "Up and out." He extended a hand.

Sam wanted to point out that being sixteen hardly qualified him as "kiddo" anymore and that he himself could get out of the car just fine, thanks very much, but instead he found himself grinning lazily up at his father, and damn, Dean was right, they really had given him the good stuff.

As John deftly pulled him out of the car and gently put a warm hand on the back of his neck to guide him along, Sam figured it must have been a pretty bad fall for John not to be completely annoyed at Sam's timing. It wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine while traveling anyway, but add an injury to the mix and it could quickly become downright torture.

Dean held the rickety porch door open for them both, and Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the prescription to set it on the table.

"You hungry?" Dean asked, opening the fridge and rummaging around. Sam considered for a moment and then shook his head no.

"Kinda just want to sleep," he managed.

"In a second, Sam," said John, leaning on the back of a dining room folding chair. He glanced at Sam for a long moment before continuing. "I just wanted to let you know we're gonna stick around here for a little while longer. Maybe the whole summer. So in the meantime I want you boys to find a job, nothing fancy, just to secure a little extra cash before we head out. Understood?"

Dean looked slightly caught off guard, leftover lo mein dangling from the side of his mouth, but he nodded and swallowed and said, "Yes sir." Sam blinked again, trying to echo Dean's words, but the only thing that got past his lips was "Uh huh," before an attempt to catch himself from nearly falling flat on his face. Dean was suddenly at his elbow, guiding Sam to his half of their shared bedroom, and Sam finally gave in to the muffled roar that filled his head as Dean pushed him back onto his pillow.

"Dean," he slurred, trying to lift his head to ask him a question that suddenly seemed imperative to know the answer to. Dean held him down by simply putting the heel of his palm on Sam's shoulder, much to Sam's chagrin. "Are we leaving?" Dean gave him a small smile.

"Not yet, Sammy."

"Why not?" he asked, wincing as he tried to use his left arm to shift himself into a more comfortable position. Dean shrugged.

"Doesn't really matter, does it? At least we'll be sticking in one place together for the summer, right?"

"Yeah," Sam sighed sleepily, his eyes closed. "Yeah, I guess."

He was out long before the constant hum of katydids filled the stagnant night air.

-----

Everything muddled and fuzzy, the hazy black-like a vacuum pulling Sam around and under, but there was something, a constant pounding throughout his body making his stomach turn, making his muscles clench in agony, and God, if he could just turn around to a more comfortable position maybe it would all go away—no, fuck, _fuck_ that hurt, and he nearly retched but instead took in a breath and let it out as a groan. He tried to crack an eye open but the bright sunlight streaming in through the bent and broken aluminum blinds quickly changed his mind. He pushed off sweat-soaked covers and glared as much as he could at the clunking air conditioning unit that had done next to nothing to cool off their stuffy room.

An ache still throbbed through his body despite the fact that he had easily pinpointed the source, though being wary of his left arm didn't make it any easier to try and roll out of bed. Sam grimaced, holding his arm closer to his chest. He needed painkillers and he needed them right the hell now.

He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand.

One forty-five in the afternoon.

"Dammit," he sighed.

He stumbled as best he could into the larger room that held the kitchen, dining area, and living room. Dean sat at the table, pen cap in his mouth and newspaper in his hand, barely looking up when Sam slowly padded in.

"Morning, sunshine," Dean said, pushing a chair out for Sam to sit in. "How're you feeling?"

"How do you _think_ I'm feeling?" Sam snapped, the dull throb in his arm seeming to echo through his head. He lowered himself slowly into the seat and tried to think about anything other than how the lingering smell of fried bologna was making his stomach feel. "Where's Dad," he muttered, just waiting for the moment when John would round the corner and go off on him for sleeping in so late.

"Off to get you your happy pills," Dean replied, still not looking up from the newspaper. Sam craned his neck to see illegible scribbles and circles scattered on the classifieds section and frowned.

"What're you doing?"

"Gettin' a job," Dean said.

Sam blinked.

"A job."

"Yeeeaaaah, a joooob."

Sam's nose wrinkled. "What the hell?"

"I thought maybe if I spoke as slow as your brain is working you could understand me better."

"_No_," Sam huffed. "I'm just not quite understanding the 'wanting to become employed' part."

At this, Dean finally paused and looked up at Sam, wiggling the pen cap back and forth with his jaw.

"Guess you don't remember Dad's little discussion last night, huh."

"Well, _yeah_, I happened to be little doped up at the time," Sam said scathingly. "Are we—we're not moving?"

"Not yet, I guess," Dean replied, shrugging. Sam stared at him for a long moment.

"And you're… okay with this," Sam finally said incredulously.

"_Yeah_, Sam, I'm okay with this." Dean scratched a messy question mark over a block halfway down the newspaper. "I don't know why you're so hell-bent on leaving all of a sudden," he muttered. "Thought small-town, white-picket-fence, backyard-barbeque, tight-knit communities would have been you're thing."

"Shut up," Sam grumped.

"Hey," Dean said, ignoring Sam, his face brightening considerably. "Whattaya' think about me getting a job down at that mechanic's in town? Says here they're looking for a little side help…."

"Sure." said Sam, gritting his teeth against a particularly painful throb of his arm. "Fine. Whatever."

"You should probably start looking too," said Dean as he flipped the page. "Something that you can still do with your stump of an arm. Heh. Lookit here, Sammy, they're looking for a short order cook at that diner up the way. You can still flip pancakes with one arm, right?"

"I don't want a job," Sam grumbled, well aware that he sounded all of eight years old.

"Too bad." He paused and looked up when he felt Sam's glare. "I don't know what you want me to tell you, Sammy. We're here for the summer because Dad said so. So you can at least see a little bit of logic behind the idea of getting a job, right?" Sam just shrugged, too groggy and still in too much pain to continue arguing.

"Why did he let me sleep so late, anyway," he said, picking at a leftover napkin on the table.

"Oh, I dunno, Sam. Maybe because he's not used to seeing an arm bending in the shape of an 's'?" Sam scowled.

"It wasn't _that_ bad," he said.

"Says the person who was barely conscious at the time."

"Whatever." Sam tried to stand up in a huff, but he nearly fell right back down on his ass for getting up so quickly. "I'm going for a walk."

"Hey, come on now," Dean said, watching Sam sway uncertainly. "Dad'll be home soon enough. Just go back to bed and I'll let you know when he's here with your pills."

"I'm fine," he bit out, shuffling into a pair of rubber flip flops. "I'll be back soon."

"Whatever, dude," said Dean, his brows drawn as he watched Sam go. "Hey, just don't break any more limbs, or else we really are gonna have a problem."

Dean ducked as one of his own shoes came flying at him.

-----

The midday sun beat steadily down on the back of Sam's neck as he picked his way through the ankle-deep dead grass that eventually gave way to the sparse woods ahead of him. He had left the cracking sidewalk that ran from the front of their house and eventually to the downtown some time ago for the solitude of the woods that surrounded the town. The mosquitoes were having a field day due to the non-existent breeze, buzzing around Sam's eyes and ears, and he grunted as he swatted nearly every inch of bare skin. His t-shirt was already sticking to his back in the humidity.

He was only slightly confused as he thought about what Dean had said. Sam had always pestered John about why they were always in such a hurry to get up and go, leaving town in a rush in the early morning dark with no explanation while he begged to stay a little longer, please, just to finish up the semester, and now, suddenly, the idea of getting a job and holing up here the rest of the summer made him irritable and twitchy. It wasn't as if he was hoping for something _better _, for something more permanent around the next corner, because he had given up on that dream a long time ago.

Maybe…

Maybe it was about the constant feeling of movement as the Impala ate up the pavement beneath her. Maybe it was sleeping all night (or as much as one could) against the cool glass and waking up groggily in the middle of the night to the hum of the engine, the low rhythmic murmurs of the radio, the gentle tapping of his father's hands on the steering wheel, and glancing up to see the stars shining bright in the clear night sky in the middle of no-man's-land.

Well. Not that he'd ever tell Dean that, anyway.

He broke the tree line and hugged his arm closer to his body. It was only slightly cooler in the shade, and the cicadas buzzed in a familiar rhythm that only heightened memories of _heat_, and _lazy_, and long afternoons of no air conditioning and rereading books with drops of his own sweat stained into the pages.

Sam had come this way before on numerous occasions, accidentally finding the winding creek during the past winter after one of the escalating number of heated arguments with his father. He had stormed out of the house without so much as an overcoat on his shoulders, stomping over ice-covered dead grass and leaves that crunched beneath his feet, not looking where he was going until he almost fell headlong into the freezing water. The fact that he didn't made no difference; he was frozen to the spot, watching the water trickle over large, smooth, flat rocks, the utter _silence_ nearly knocking him straight on his ass. He stayed rooted to the spot until Dean had come tearing and swearing and generally making a ruckus through the trees, roughly throwing a coat over Sam's shoulders and bitching about how stupid it was for Sam to take off like that in just his shirt and jeans, Jesus _Christ_, and hauled him back to the house, but not before Sam had etched the path into his memory.

The dirt beneath his feet gave way to rusted red clay, and as Sam stood on the bank of the murmuring creek, the clay squished beneath his flip flops. He wondered idly if wearing them had been such a good idea.

He squatted, running his good hand through the icy cold water, and thought.

He thought about endless summers and endless hunts; he thought about the word _normalcy_; he thought about things he hadn't dared let himself think for a long while as he sat back on his haunches and snapped twigs in half, sending them swirling downstream.

Sam wiped the beading sweating on his forehead with his shirtsleeve and then cupped his hands in the water, splashing his face and neck, giving a shiver as the icy water trickled down his back.

He found his way back in to town, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

-----

Dean was already at the house when Sam returned, John pulling up not a second after Sam stepped foot in the door. Dean was standing in the kitchen, something that looked like chicken sizzling in a pan on the stovetop, and white rice boiling on the burner behind it. John stepped from behind Sam and sniffed the air, toeing off his boots.

"What's all this?" he grunted, handing Sam the little white prescription bag.

Dean turned, lips twitching, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"I got the job," he said, dimples surfacing in an effort to stay composed. "I went down to Pete's Auto downtown, told him I was applying for the side mechanic's position, and he asks me what kind of experience I've had, and I told him the Impala, obviously, so he takes me around back and there's this amazing '66 Chevelle, God, Dad, I wish you could have seen her, and he says, 'Change her oil and sparkplugs, and check all the belts to make sure they're running properly,' and I did, and he was so damn impressed he gave me the job right then and there." He was nearly breathless, and Sam was sure he'd never seen his brother give such a face-splitting grin. "Dad," Dean repeated, sounding nothing short of amazed, "I got the job."

John stood for a long moment, looking at Dean, his lips pursed. "And when do you start?" he asked.

"Tomorrow morning, sir," was Dean's reply. John nodded slowly, silent again.

"Good," he finally said. "Okay."

His father's voice showed no emotion, but even Sam could see the smile in his eyes.

-----

Two days later Sam received a phonecall.

"Sam Winchester?" a voice asked.

"Speaking." Dean was at work and his father was God knows where, and Sam was suddenly greedy for any amount of privacy he could get. Especially if this call was what he thought it was….

"This is Annette from B & J Grocery? Just wanted to let you know that we've received your application and we'd like to speak with you about the position you're applying for. Could you come in tomorrow, say, around three?"

"Yeah, sure thing," said Sam, feeling a swoop in his gut. Annette rattled off a phone number in case he needed to reach her before then, and he hung up the phone with a grin.

Dean came in not long after that, dirt and grit and oil smudging his gray t-shirt black, the warm and familiar reek of both fresh and dried sweat leaving a lingering smell in the small kitchen. Dean opened the fridge and pulled out a beer, popping the top off with his ring, and plopped down at the table, giving a satisfied sigh as he pulled up an adjoining chair to rest grime-covered boots.

"Make me a sandwich, bitch," Dean said, and belched loudly.

"I'm gonna have to go with 'no,'" Sam replied. "Stump of an arm, remember?" He dangled his left arm uselessly in front of him. Fortunately, the drugs were doing what they were supposed to.

"Hey, come on now," Dean said, "I'm the workin' man of the house, now! It's gonna be _my_ hard-earned money that's paying for your dirty porn habits."

"That's _your_ dirty porn habits, in case you forgot, and you don't even pay for it anyway." Sam retrieved a Coke from the fridge. "Besides, I just so happen to have gotten hired myself." Well. It wasn't a sure thing, but Sam liked to think himself an optimist.

"Yeah?" Dean sat up straighter, interested. "Where at?"

Sam shrugged. "It's not a big deal, really." The beginnings of a smirk showed on Dean's face.

"C'mon, Sam, where?" he said.

"Just that uh, you know that B & J Grocery? I applied there, and I mean, you know, it's not like you and Dad, the mechanic thing and all, but the pay is pretty good, for around here—why the _hell_ are you laughing, asshole?"

"Your face," Dean said, hiccupping in an effort to stifle his laughter. "It's—I don't think I've ever seen it that lovely shade of pink before, dude."

Sam gritted his teeth and made a noise of frustration, abruptly turning heel out of the kitchen.

"Hey hey, c'mon Sammy, I wasn't makin' fun. _Hey_." Dean was suddenly at his elbow, gripping his good arm, and Sam absently noted that when he stood up straighter he could suddenly see over the top of Dean's head. "I mean it. It's just… for a second there I almost thought you might've felt the odd man out, or something." He shrugged, trying to coax Sam with a smile. "'S interesting."

"What're you talking about," Sam said, pulling his arm away from Dean and wiping a smudge of grease from his skin. Dean rolled his eyes.

"So you're kind of shit at repairing cars. So what? That'll be a good job, Sam. You gotta start somewhere, right?"

Not that Sam would admit it in a million years, but when long afternoons found both John and Dean under the hood of the Impala, swigging cold beers and talking softly, pointing with a ratchet at some part of the engine and working with nimble fingers, he'd watch from the sidelines, denying the surge of jealousy in his gut. It wasn't that Sam was completely inept with a car; he knew the basics: how to change a tire, change the oil, add antifreeze, hell, even hotwire the engine if he were so inclined. But for all the enjoyment Dean and his father got from tinkering under the hood, Sam saw nothing but work.

And not that he'd ever admit in a million years plus one, but Sam hoped such a simple and mundane job would be… _good enough_. Dean had hit a little more close to home than he would have liked.

"And you get to where one of those little aprons, right?" Dean was saying. He took a long swig from his beer, making a loud suction noise when he pulled his lips away, knowing it would irritate Sam. "Cute. I promise never to come down there and take a shitload of pictures and stick them up all over the hallways of your next school."

The end result was a fist shaped bruise on Dean's arm and mild cut on Sam's palm, the latter of which came from the broken half-full beer bottle that somehow ended up on the floor while they wrestled, though Dean was mindful of Sam's cast. Dean bemoaned the loss of the last beer and smacked Sam upside the head once more for good measure, as he was unable to get more until John came back.

They waited for John to return to the house that night, his sharp eye to catch small slivers of beer-bottle green under the counters and give them an even sharper reprimand, but he never came.

-----

Annette, it turned out, was Beth and Joe's daughter, and more or less ran the store since the original founders were now well into old age. Annette herself was a portly woman with a kind but calculating eye, and Sam inadvertently found himself turning on the charm that had earned him hidden information while on hunts.

It worked, apparently, because he was hired on the spot.

"We usually don't hire anyone under the age of seventeen," she said while shaking his hand in a bone-crunching grip. "But for you, I'll make an exception. You seem the hard-working type, even with that cast."

Sam assured her that he was.

The following days were filled with events he never thought he'd get a chance to experience: orientation videos, store training, meeting fellow employees. It was so downright _normal_ it was absurd, and despite his unease at doing so, he fell into an easy routine. Jim, assistant manager to Annette, was pleased at how fast he was learning.

"But don't be fooled," he drawled, wagging a callused brown finger at Sam. "It may be a small store, but there's more than plenty to do."

And he was right. Sweeping, stocking, ringing, and bagging quickly became Sam's area of expertise, and hours at a time on his feet were nothing thanks to endless waits on numerous hunts without moving a muscle. Sam relished the feeling of accomplishment, so much more different than that same feeling mixed with the drowning of adrenaline after a hunt.

Making acquaintances outside of school was something new as well, and where Dean and his father had made it a point to push away any sort of relationship anywhere they were, Sam continually found himself angry and upset during each move that their father forced on them, leaving behind small friendships that had been so carefully made.

There were a good handful of kids from Sam's highschool, all older than him, but only three worked the front floor with Sam.

Janine was a tiny girl with fourteen piercings (that Sam could see) and a new hair color every week, but, much to Sam's surprise, she was shy and quiet and mostly hung behind the other two who worked the floor. David was blonde and skinny and usually high every time Sam saw him, and AJ, who played defensive tackle on their school's small football team, was always brimming with energy, his laugh always echoing through the store. Each had a deep southern accent that Sam couldn't help but be fascinated with each time they spoke.

"So where you come from, Sam-I-am," AJ asked one day while Sam was stocking and arranging green beans on the bottom shelf on isle four. Janine and David stood behind him, listening intently.

Sam shrugged and pushed his bangs out of his face. "All over," he said. "My dad's work takes us all across the country, so."

"And why y'all come here, huh? Out of anywhere in Georgia, hell, anywhere in the _country_, why here?"

Sam wasn't exactly sure what AJ was driving at as he looked up at the three of them for a long moment, but he then turned back to the beans.

"Well my brother says _y'all_ have the best fuckin' apple pie anywhere, so maybe that's it."

When Sam glanced up again he was pleased to note that even Janine had a quirk of a smile on her face.

-----

Two weeks later, Sam received his first ever paycheck.

"Son of a bitch," Dean grinned, examining the watermark. "In your own name and everything. Congrats, Sammy."

It wasn't exactly a hefty sum, but it was enough for Sam to have a thrill of _owning_ something, something that he had rightfully earned legally, and to have (almost) free reign on what he wanted to do with it was a pretty damn good feeling.

Dean himself had pocketed quite a good amount of money. Apparently Pete had found Dean to be a bit of a prodigy, and he moved him up in rank and pay. Never in his life had Sam seen Dean more relaxed and content, especially after coming back to the house covered in dark smudges of grease and oil up to his elbows, sweat streaking through layers of grime on his face, except… except only on hunts.

"We should do something," said Dean, breaking Sam's thoughts. "We should _buy_ something. Like one of those fuckin'… GPS thingies for the Impala." He sniffed, rubbing his arm across his nose, effectively smearing grease on the tip of his nose. Sam bit down the inside of his cheeks. Hard. "I need new boots," Dean was mumbling, scuffing his shoes on the floor. He then suddenly looked up at Sam, his face brightening. "Hey! How about a concert or something? See who's touring around the area, maybe. I'm picking. There's no way you're dragging me to see any of that shit music you listen to."

"A concert," Sam repeated, bored with the constant jibes at his own music taste. "Hey, Dean, here's an idea. How about you go out and update _your_ music collection. We have these things called _CDs_ now, don't know if you've heard of them."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Dean said, slapping Sam's paycheck down on the table. "I thought you, of all people, would know that."

"Whatever," Sam sighed, looking out the window. "Hey—do you know if Dad's been home recently? It doesn't look like it, but I'm not sure."

"Dunno," Dean replied. "I haven't seen him since three nights ago, but you know him. Can't sit still for more than five minutes without itching for something to kill."

"Kinda sounds like someone else I know," Sam muttered, turning out of the kitchen to put the check in his room until he could cash it.

"What's that?" Dean inquired from behind him.

"Nothing," Sam said over his shoulder, hoping it was true. "Nothing at all."

-----

The afternoon was settling in, stubbornly persistent in its heat and humidity, and as Sam walked back towards the house, work apron slung over his shoulder, he felt as if he was breathing through a moist wash cloth. He shook his head, trying to move damp strings of hair from his eyes.

"Hey! Hey boy!" a voice called, breaking the stillness of the afternoon. Sam jumped and then froze, knowing full well of how very unarmed he was, and oh God, Dad was going to _kill_ him, how lax this job had made him, just one step into the boundaries of normalcy and he was already acting as if there _weren't_ things out there that were just itching to kill him—

"Hey! Stop lollygagging, I called you over here!"

Sam turned to see a middle aged woman in a yellow dress and matching sun hat, standing in the midst of her overgrown yard that sat in front of a small, dilapidated two story house. She stomped through long grass to her knee-high wooden gate, white paint peeling from it as if it had better places to be, a stern look on her face.

"Uh," Sam said.

"Do I have to come out there and drag your skinny ass over myself? Christ almighty, child, I ain't gonna bite."

Sam looked up the street, where, around the bend, his house and a mildly decent air conditioner were waiting, and then back at the woman, her hands on her hips and her skin a blotchy red from the heat.

He walked up warily to the gate.

She looked him over, scrutinizing nearly every inch of him until he felt more than a little uncomfortable. "Have I seen you before?" she snapped, and Sam could see that her teeth were in about the same condition as her house.

"Well, um, I work at B & J's, in town, so yeah, maybe."

"Goodness, ain't you an eloquent young thing." She scowled. "Listen, child, I ain't gonna beat around the bush if you'll 'scuse the pun. My bones just ain't what they used to be so many years ago, and my lawn is lookin' more like a jungle each time I step foot outside my door which doesn't please me in the least, you understand. The lawnmower is in the shed 'round the side, and I'd be more obliged if you'd put your able body to better use than bagging eggs and bread."

Sam stared, at a loss for words.

The woman sniffed. "Well, I reckon I'd better do the polite thing and introduce myself. June Crenshaw. And you?"

"Sam," he stuttered, so thrown for a loop that he didn't even think to give any sort of alias. "Sam Winchester."

"Well, Sam Winchester, when you're finished gawkin' you can come 'round to the side and get started."

"Ma'am," Sam tried, nearly laughing in incredulity and amazement at this woman's persistence. "I'm sorry, but I've really got to get back to my house—"

"Listen to me, child, I ain't askin' for much," she interrupted, and Sam couldn't mistake the pleading look in her eyes, too stubborn to manifest itself into words. "And I've got freshly homemade iced tea, best you've ever had, I promise."

Sam studied her for a moment, and then gave a reassuring smile, and for the first time during their conversation, June let a small smile slip across her face.

"Well, I can't say no to that, can I?" he said, and opened the gate to follow her to the side shed.

He'd never mowed a lawn in his life, but Sam figured it out quickly enough. The hot, sweet smell of gasoline and fresh cut grass filled the muggy afternoon air, and Sam quickly became drenched in sweat. Crenshaw had called out to him to watch for wasps nesting in the long grass, not exactly keen on being mowed over, and cackled when he jumped in surprise.

She disappeared inside for a moment just as he was finishing up, and came back out with two sweating glasses of amber brown iced tea.

"For your troubles," she said, handing him the glass as he wiped his forehead. It was sweetened just right with a little hint of lemon, and Sam downed it all at once. He set the glass down on the small wicker table next to her rocking chair, almost wishing for another.

"What did I tell you," she said, looking up at him. "Best you've ever had, eh?"

"Definitely," Sam said, smiling.

Dean was already back at the house when Sam arrived, not even yet showered from his day at work, hands clenching and unclenching as Sam stepped in through the kitchen.

"Dude, what the _hell_," he growled before Sam could say anything. "You got off work nearly an hour ago. Where the hell were you?"

"What's that?" Sam said, smirking as he sat down at the kitchen table, propping his feet up on the nearby chair just as he'd seen Dean do. "You weren't _worried_ or anything, were you?"

"_Worried_," Dean scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. "It's your turn to make dinner, bitch."

"And God knows you could have never made something yourself, Emeril." Sam reached to grab at his laces, pulling off his shoes. "I was walking home from work and got sidetracked by something. No big." Telling Dean that an old lady had threatened him into mowing her lawn? Yeah, he'd never hear the end of _that_ one. He sighed and looked around.

"Dad's still not home?"

"Nope," Dean replied pulling off his stained shirt as he walked toward their shared bathroom. "Relax, Sammy, he's been gone for longer. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"Right," Sam mumbled, hunting through the freezer to find a bag of precooked stir-fry. As he listened to the shower running in the other room and the sizzling of the stir-fry on the stove, he couldn't help but wonder when this would all come crashing down.

-----

Stocking, in Sam's mind, was arguably worse than ringing up customers, but tonight he didn't mind. He, Janine, AJ, and David were all on the closing shift tonight, and really, Sam just wanted some time alone to think, or, not think, as it were. But finally the night came to a close, and just as Sam was gathering his things from the employee locker room, the other three surrounded him.

"Hiya, Sam-I-am," AJ said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking pleased. Sam was starting to get the idea that AJ was the collective spokesperson for the other two. "Don't got anywhere to be after we get out, do ya'?" Sam shrugged, wrapping his apron in a messy ball.

"Sleeping, if that counts," he said. AJ gave a tisk.

"Too bad for you it doesn't," AJ replied, pulling at Sam's shirt sleeve. "C'mon. You're coming with us."

"I really shouldn't," Sam protested weakly, though he followed them out anyway. "My brother's waiting for me and—"

"Too bad, so sad. Now _c'mon_, or we're going to miss the 9:27."

"The… what?" Sam started to ask, but they were already heading out the sliding glass doors, the coolness of the AC on the inside and the dense humidity outside making them fogged. Sam sighed, and followed.

They were silent as they walked through the windless night, cars passing occasionally on the main road, and the lights gradually waned as they walked further out of the town, more and more stars becoming visible. Sam bit his tongue, curious to know where they were headed, but wise enough to know not to spoil the silence of such moments, like a breath being held before a plunge. The woods around them became denser and Sam was almost positive he'd been around here, once, sometime before.

A left, then, and a small trail through the woods, David's patched and well-worn backpack snagging on a few branches, and then a wide, wide open area, the half moon making it nearly visible to see—

"The railroad," Sam murmured, remembering hearing the shrill whistle of a train echoing through the night, comforting in the same way that rain falling on the roof and trickling down their half-formed gutter was comforting. Sam grinned and saw the other three sitting down cross-legged a good ten feet from the tracks, and followed suit.

"9:18," AJ remarked, looking at his watch. "Excellent." David zipped open his backpack and pulled out a six pack of beer, passing them around, pausing when he got to Sam.

"Miller?" David asked, almost cautiously it seemed, handing a nearly lukewarm beer to Sam.

"Why the hell not," Sam smirked and popped the top with David's convenient bottle opener, grimacing after a swig of one of Dean's favorite piss-flavored brands.

They sat in silence, again, not needing to fill the emptiness with mindless chatter, swigging their beers and gazing up at the bright night sky. Sam marveled at how easy it was to slip into a comfortable familiarity with people he'd only known for such a brief period of time. He could easily do this, he thought, a swooping thrill in his gut, so much better than his father or his brother ever could.

He let that thought linger for a while.

"Almost time," AJ muttered, craning his neck to look around a tree-covered bend.

They heard it before they saw it, Janine giving a soft "Oh!" that quickly became drowned out in the massive rumbling of the train, and suddenly it was in front of them, moving at such a speed that Sam could barely make out the brightly colored graffiti that covered the old cars, the wheels screeching against the rusting tracks.

Each of them sat stock-still, the whooshing air ruffling hair and shirts. Sam was mesmerized, somehow, barely registering the assault on his ears, which, in an ironic way, reminded of a tornado. Tornadoes he had seen; kind of hard not to, driving back and forth across the country, but he'd never understood the comparison of between the two until now.

He'd lost count of how long they'd been sitting there, watching the train hurtle towards its next destination, and then, just like that, it ended, abrupt; Sam's ears rang.

They stared at the empty space for a while, lost in the moment, and Sam didn't know if it was the beer or not, but he couldn't remember a time when he'd been this… relaxed.

"Excellent," AJ finally said, breaking the silence, and downed the rest of his beer. "Alright, kids, it's been fun, but I got someone waiting for me and I aint' gonna keep her, so if you'll 'scuse."

Sam made his way to a standing position with a wobble, and Janine grabbed his arm to steady him and then blushed scarlet, though when Sam thanked her she gave a small smile.

They parted ways with a wave and Sam made his way back to the house only stumbling slightly (and if anyone _ever_ told his brother that Sam'd kill them), sleepy and content. The Impala was still missing from the driveway and no lights were on in the house, and Sam let himself breathe easier. If Dean himself wasn't even home, he wouldn't get bitched out for not calling to tell him where he was.

He unlocked the door and made his way in through the kitchen, and even though it was still pretty early, he was more than ready to crash in his own bed.

And that's when he heard a loud, guttural groan coming from his own bedroom, followed by a breathy exclamation of... something from a female voice.

"Aw, _Dean_, dammit," Sam huffed in exasperation, and kicked the side of the couch in frustration. Looked like he'd be bunking here tonight. It wasn't the first time Dean had decided to play charitable bachelor with the locals, and Sam knew that the only way he'd ever get any sleep was with a heap of pillows on top of his head. Not easily done when it was roughly forty billion degrees outside, even at night.

He sighed, and fell into a restless sleep.

The next morning Dean was already up before Sam and had successfully burned two pieces of toast, which he munched upon happily. The girl, it looked, had already disappeared.

The inside of Sam's cast was burning to be itched, which only made him more irritable, being unable to tear the stupid thing off with his own bare hands and just _scratch_, so he finally forced himself to the kitchen, looking for the ruler that would fit under the cast nicely.

"Sleep well?" Dean asked with a smirk that would probably make even John cringe, while Sam searched the drawers.

"Funny you should ask," Sam muttered, sarcasm intentionally laced in his words. "That's my room _too_, Dean, in case you forgot."

"Yeah, well." Dean swept black crumbs littering the table with his hand. "_You_ were out and about anyway, so I don't see what the big problem was." Sam rolled his eyes.

"I _live here_, Dean, I would have come back eventually." He finally found the ruler in the drawer with a mismatched bunch of silverware and slid it under his cast, relief flooding through him. "So who was she, anyway."

"Good question," Dean said, scratching his neck. "Um. April Something. April… Cren-something. I dunno. Things got a bit hazy after she took off her shirt."

"Crenshaw?" Sam asked, knowing he looked more than a little ridiculous with his eyes bugged open and his jaw hanging loose. "Tell me it wasn't April _Crenshaw_."

"Yeah! Damn. That girl had an _ass_, let me tell you." But Sam barely registered Dean's words, nearly choking with laughter until he wiped stray tears from his face. Dean was utterly and frustratingly confused, and Sam gleefully left it that way.

-----

It all came crashing down two nights later.

More precisely, at 3:17 in the morning.

John had been missing a grand total of ten days up to that point, no note or call or clarification of where he was, and for all the reassuring Dean gave Sam (not that _Sam_ needed it; sometimes, he figured, Dean was just trying to reassure himself more than anything) they were both still a little twitchy, though Dean more so, glancing at the phone when he thought Sam wasn't looking.

So when the phone rang in the middle of the night, both Sam and Dean shot up in their beds and gave each other a glance in the darkened room.

Dean was quicker to the phone.

Nothing out of the ordinary that Sam could make out while Dean talked to their father, though there was a steadily deepening crease between his brows; just a lot of "yes sirs" and then an "I'll be right down, thank you sir." Sam's stomach turned uncomfortably.

"That," Dean said, running a hand over stubble, "was the Walton county police department. Apparently, uh... Dad's in Monroe. At the county jail."

"_What_?" Sam exclaimed. "Why? What the hell happened? He hasn't been there this whole time, has he?"

"No, he, uh," Dean cleared his throat, deliberately looking away from Sam. "Drunk, actually."

Sam felt as if all the air had been deflated out of him, worry and fear quickly turning into anger.

"Oh for God's _sake_, Dean—"

"I don't want to _hear it_, Sam," Dean snapped, and stalked off to their bedroom to find some pants.

"Just how the hell are you gonna get over to _Monroe_, Dean; Dad apparently still has the car."

"I'll come up with something," he replied stonily. Oh _fantastic_, Sam thought, knowing what that meant. Just what they needed; someone in their small town watching Dean hotwire a car and "borrow" it.

"Don't you even think about giving him shit when we come back, Sam," Dean threatened as he slipped on his boots.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure he'd be too drunk to remember anyway," Sam spat back. Dean's jaw clenched and he shot Sam a death glare before pulling the front door shut behind him.

Hot and frustrated, and unwilling to be conscious when they got back to the house, Sam went back to bed with the intention of sleeping in well into the afternoon.

-----

It was apparent that drinking wasn't all John had been doing.

Cuts and minor gashes were sprinkled across his body like some kind of decoration. Dean had cleaned them all after they had come back early this morning.

John still lay on the couch, snoring softly.

"Hunting something, apparently," Dean said, shrugging. "Wouldn't tell me what."

He hadn't stepped foot back in the house since earlier that afternoon, hiding agitation and the need to be moving by detailing the Impala. Sam watched intermittently while trying to concentrate on a book he was reading, but he made hardly any headway on it.

Finally, as afternoon wore into dusk, Dean came inside, sticky with sweat and red clay marring his boots.

"You work with cars all day at your job," Sam said, pretending to concentrate on his book. "Dunno why you'd wanna come back here and do the same thing."

"I'm gonna go clean up," Dean said, ignoring his brother. "By the time I'm finished be ready to go."

"Go where?" Sam asked, more curious than irritated.

"Just be ready," he said, and the bathroom door shut.

Half an hour later they sat in the Impala and Sam finally realized why the stretch of road they were on didn't look immediately recognizable: they were heading towards the interstate.

"So where exactly are we going?" he tried again, but Dean just shook his head, partly amused and partly annoyed.

"Curiosity kills, or so I hear. You'll see eventually."

They passed a road maker, barely lit, and Sam only had time to see it as the Impala's headlights glanced off the sign. West, then, it was.

Fireflies winked on and off through the dark highway, and Sam rolled down the window to let the warm night air in. Dean turned up the radio, automatically set to the closest classic rock station, and they quickly left Rutledge behind them. It had been a while since Sam had been on the road as such, and he was surprised to find how much he missed it.

They continued for miles, silent in their own thoughts. So much so, in fact, that Sam almost missed the recreational sign as Dean merged onto a small road. Stone Mountain, Georgia.

"Huh," Sam said. Dean gave no indication that he'd heard him.

They finally pulled into the massive parking lot surrounding the said destination, though "mountain" it certainly was not. It was a massive granite dome, extremely familiar with tourists and families who wanted a good hike, though without all that trickiness of finding trails, carrying provisions, and… basically anything else that had to do with hiking. The huge bas-relief of prominent Confederate figures carved into the side of the mountain was lit up with gusto, and only then did Sam remember what day it was.

"It's the forth of July, isn't it."

"Yep," Dean replied, shutting the door and turning towards where a large crowd was gathering at the base of the mountain in front of the bas-relief.

"Dude," Sam said, running to catch up with him. "What're we doing here?"

"Remember when I said I wanted to go to a concert, Sam?" He gestured around. "Well. Here we are." Sam raised his eyebrows, still utterly clueless on why Dean would want to come _here_, of all places, but he quickly turned to follow as well.

Inside the gates were multitudes of people, settling onto the grass with large blankets and lawn chairs, the constant hum of chatter and droning from the katydids making the place feel alive with energy. They found a spot that wasn't too crowded with people around and sat, mirroring each other with their arms resting bent knees. Sam tried without success to itch his wrist that was still heavily encased in plaster, and sighed forlornly.

It wasn't long before the lights surrounding the area dimmed and the crowd hushed, a deep and ominous thrum of bass echoing through the field. And then, just as Roger Waters pleaded to know if there was anybody out there, Sam's jaw dropped with recognition.

"Dean. Pink _Floyd_?" Sam shook his head, amazed. "No fucking way."

"Cheap show, man," Dean said, shrugging, though his eyes crinkled with a grin.

"But," Sam tried, even though Dean's eyes were glued to the flickering green laser outline of the figures on the bas-relief. "You don't even _like_ Pink Floyd, do you?" Dean shrugged again.

"For all their psychedelic hippiness… nah, they weren't so bad, I guess. Now shut up, I paid good, hard-earned money for this." And then Sam couldn't help but be transfixed as "Another Brick in the Wall" exploded with sound and brilliant colors, lasers flashing intensely and the intermittent burst of fireworks lighting the field around them in technicolor. It was beyond thrilling, the intricate mix of music and light.

Accidentally, his mind wandered to what would happen after tonight. If the hunt their father was on had ended badly, there would be a good chance leaving the town behind in their dust pretty soon. Sam didn't want to admit it, not to Dean and especially not to his own father, but he didn't want to leave. Not _here_ at the park, necessarily, though he could have easily stayed for a long while, but the store, his _job_, even his appointment next week to re-mow Crenshaw's lawn. There was no way that they could have stayed, he knew that, but all the same; now that he knew the other side, the exact opposite of the lives they lead, the lives of the people whom they _saved_ on a daily basis… it would be nearly unbearable to just up and leave it behind when he knew what he would be missing.

A stray firework fell down into the trees surround the mountain base, and a tree slowly went up into flame, much to the surprise of the audience members.

"Hey! Your rock's on fire!" Dean shouted, making several people around them chuckle.

Still, Sam thought, watching Dean grin, the vibrant colors that erupted around them making his brother's face glow, maybe there would be worse things in the world to miss.


End file.
